Young And Reckless: How College Dating Works

By Adaeze Nwokolobia on January 22, 2019

There is almost nothing like being in college, and in love. It is exhilarating and stressful all at once. No story is uninteresting. Here’s insider information on how college dating works from real life college students.

“He was my first real boyfriend and when you’re 17-18 years old, your hormones are wild and ready to explore the young adult world. In reality, I lost track of why I was really in college, of how much I was spending on my education and future…” – Paula, SUNY Geneseo

Man Kissing Woman's Forehead

Pexels.com

Don’t expect heavy duty romance — all you need is a meal plan and the school cafeteria.

Aliana and Liam live in New York City. Aliana is a junior at City College of Staten Island and lives with her parents downtown Manhattan. Liam is her boyfriend who goes to Queens College and lives in Queens. They met online, not on Tinder but a similar app she really can’t remember from three years ago. Yes, they have been together for that long in fact since her freshman year. She works part-time at a Tjmaxx about a block away from where she lives. Liam, on the other hand, used to be a waiter at a restaurant but he quit to focus on school. They can’t really go on dates as often what with busy college schedules and tight budgets. Sometimes, they take walks in the park, see a movie once in two weeks, Netflix and chill, eat at a Chipotle every other day and take late evening ferry rides. He used to pay for all the dates and now that he quit his job Aliana buys him little gifts once in a while and pays for some of the dates to keep the romance going. Un-gentrifying romance as it would seem.

“Money is a problem sometimes we can’t always do what we want because we don’t have the money but we don’t let it affect our plans or moods.”

Sometimes, they meet at each other’s house and hang out. They don’t really see each other often because they go to different colleges and they don’t have a lot of freedom as they still live with their parents. Aliana says planning goes a long way especially sticking to those plans. Most of the time they simply meet up to talk and be intimate with each other verbally and otherwise. They make their relationship work however they can. Exciting or not.

“We spend 1 whole day together out of the whole month if we’re lucky more. And by lucky, I mean I get some days off from work to be able to see him when we don’t have school. We even went mother’s day shopping. He got stuff for my mom as well as his.”

For people living on campus, sharing a mandatory meal plan with your significant other is often a realistic option to going out on dates even though campus food can be a tad unnecessarily expensive. You can have coffee and sandwiches at a Starbucks location on-campus, stir-fry on the north side of campus, special cuisine events at select dining halls, plain old fries and milkshake every other Friday afternoon and local mall shopping Saturday nights. While some couples just go to the mall to eat cheap delicious Chinese food others go to window shop. Nobody cares. It might not be glamorous but that is college dating. You are supposed to manage, scrimp and still make it look awesome at the same time. Sometimes, you hang in each other’s dorms and talk about how student loans suck,  grad school, dreams and hopes for the future and even homework if you happen to be taking the same classes that semester. Some couples take a class together at least once a semester and even wake up early for pre-registration just to secure a class for their significant other. Oh, young love. The things you will do.

Freshman Year: Clout chasing is the order of the day

“Freshman year I feel like everyone tried so hard to be accepted and get so many friends.” – Aliana 

In his article, “What is clout? An explainer for olds” Chris Gayomali, an over thirty interviewer confers with GQ teen writer Jake Woolf about what clout means. Clout (n), meaning possessing special advantage or influence in politics or business* has become according to Woolf a teen colloquialism for possessing influence on social media and among social groups. More like “being popular and cool, all at once.” He says. But it is Woolf’s example of how clout can be used that is particularly interesting.

“She just wants to fvk me for my clout, fvk.”  Just like you and I presume, Gayomali muses that this eccentric albeit trap heavy example is probably a mumble rapper reference. Think *Playboi Carti or Kodak Black. Misogynist and patronizing at the very heart of it.

There is a tinge of high school nostalgia that clout chasing calls to mind where popularity and influence are heavily sought out in a subtly different way from political campaigning but to the matters of love. Think fraternities, sororities, and power dynamics. If you are well known, you probably get hotter girls and vice versa. Late Friday nights, girls walk through the snow in large groups yelling at the top of their voices in pre-game mode en voyage to a meet-up. Gang-gang. You get invited or told if you have clout. God forbid, you do not belong. You get left behind..

I mean, what is the point of Greek life apart from having a sense of belonging and inadvertently chasing clout? Like Paula asserts, after all, you are basically paying to make friends and gain influence. Hence, a large number of freshman recruits to social fraternities and sororities who might or might not get hazed trying to be part of a “family.” If not through fraternities or sororities, clubs on campus offer a much more diluted and conscious environment to see and be seen, make friends or even find love. Thing is, they are usually boring and somewhat too democratic. Everybody is entitled to an opinion and no one is ever wrong.

In college, it is not uncommon to feel small or out of place hence the need to form alliances in form of friendships. The social landscape is too permeable and groggy because the structure is obscured by the presence of a newfound freedom. A freedom that can be explored with similarly-minded people who can deflect social anxieties away from each other unto other people outside the group.  Girls find out they get approached more when they are in groups than when they are alone. Aliana, further confirms that the first year girls will feel the need to be seen and seen. Convinced that their faces appear more and more recognizable amidst company than when they walk through campus alone, perhaps, even more attractive. Hence, they face great pressure to seek out unnecessary and fickle friendships that will just fizzle out a year later.

via Pexels.com

Don’t look out for a text after a random hook-up simply meet quite shockingly/awkwardly in a class or your favorite coffee shop

“Dating overall in college I think is a bit tricky. There’s people who just want fun and don’t really think their relationships are going to go anywhere after college. And then there’s those who seek for a life companion.” – Aliana, City College of Staten Island. 

Ghosting. You meet someone and you believe you had an amazing connection, magnetic even. Throwback to the night before: the party is loud, electric and really hot and as the *night gets deeper the shallower you feel.  That is until this cute guy comes along with a really nice smile and suddenly the night just got a whole lot more interesting. Maybe or maybe not you end up back in his dorm or a private room at the frat house. However, you both exchange contacts in the hopes of hanging during the day because they just kind of feel right.

Back to the present. It’s been two days already still no message and you might or might not have sent 20 messages like a crazy person during this period. You are still wondering if you dreamed it all. That is until you meet them at your favorite coffee shop with a bunch of his friends and he looks good and evil at the same time laughing his head off. Weirdly, you think it is about you and you get uncomfortable fast. After all, this is not high school people should be more mature.

To be continued in my next article…This is a four-part article series so please look out for follow-up articles! 

*The rapper reference is Chris Gayomali’s.

* Jidenna “Liitle bit more” song reference

** The interviews were conducted over texts and they are exact statements.

Follow Uloop

Apply to Write for Uloop News

Join the Uloop News Team

Discuss This Article

Back to Top

Log In

Contact Us

Upload An Image

Please select an image to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format
OR
Provide URL where image can be downloaded
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format

By clicking this button,
you agree to the terms of use

By clicking "Create Alert" I agree to the Uloop Terms of Use.

Image not available.

Add a Photo

Please select a photo to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format